Are you taking full advantage of all the data capabilities available in Legends of Learning?

When asked about how our power users get the most out of using Legends of Learning, it definitely comes down to reporting. Legends of Learning offers a variety of data from individual assignment, student-level data, standards mastery data, and more! 

Here’s an overview of the various data reports that are available when your students play Legends of Learning quiz games and assessments.

Assignment Data

Track student progress through your live and completed assignments. With assignment data reports, you receive up to date information on exactly where students are in your assignment, how much time they spent on each activity in the assignment, as well as an overall class report that allows you to view grades for the entire assignment or each assessment or quiz game that you included. For more information on the type of data you can receive on your assignment data page, check out this article.

Reports By Student

Student reports allow you to see how each student has performed on all assignments assigned in Legends of Learning. Receive a score for each assignment (if a quiz game or assessment was added), as well as their cumulative data for all assignments completed. Additionally, you can click the assignment name from this page to take you to the whole class assignment data page. See more details on student reports here.

Standards-based Data

Pull data on how well your students are mastering each standard assigned in Legends of Learning. This page breaks down both usage (number of hours and activities) as well as performance per standard assigned…even if the standards are covered across multiple assignments! Find out if students are identified as “in progress”, “needs improvement” or “proficient” in each standard. For a more detailed look at our standards-based data and how proficiency is measured, check out this article.

Awakening Data

In addition to all the data you can receive about the assignments you have assigned, you can also monitor student progression through our independent student game, Awakening. When students enter Awakening outside of a teacher assignment, they are taken through a progression of predetermined topics in math or science. As their teacher, you can monitor where they are in this progression to identify which students may be performing below, at, or above grade level. You can find Awakening progression data in the same place as the standards-based data reports. You’ll simply toggle to the Progression section on this page.

Bonus Pro Tip

Want to see how your students performed on a topic throughout a lesson? Create your assignment with assessment questions at the beginning and at the end of the assignment. That way, you can compare their scores and evaluate their knowledge gain!

You’ll most likely start an assignment by adding games. That’s perfect. Add your games and then add in two assesssments. Finish by dragging one to the beginning of the queue.

In honor of one of our favorite mathematical days of the year coming around again (get it?), we’re excited to celebrate this mathematical constant as it was meant to be celebrated. Not with apple, blueberry, or pumpkin flavored desserts, but with the sweetest treat of all: math! 

The mathematical constant pi results from dividing the circumference of a circle by its diameter. The ratio found by performing that function for any circle regardless of size is 3.14159265…to infinity, or, simply, pi. Pi is commonly referred to by its first three significant digits, 3.14, and is why Pi Day also happens to be celebrated on the numerical version of the date, March 14th.  

Celebrate this special date in your classroom with a collaborative 5E lesson plan to help middle school students understand the meaning of pi and how it relates to circles. Normally available to paid users only, find this lesson plan for free here in celebration of Pi Day!

Or, if you’d rather create your own assignment, here are some great pi-related games to get you started!

From inventing new meteorological instruments to invigorating the environmentalism movement, countless women scientists have paved the way in historically male-dominated fields to further our understanding of the natural world and beyond. In celebration of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, read below to learn more about four amazing women scientists and the way their groundbreaking work has impacted the world today. 

Mae C. Jemison (1956-Present)

In 1992, as an astronaut aboard the Endeavor, she became the first African American woman in space. She completed a degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University, completed her graduate degree at Cornell University Medical College, and went on to serve in the Peace Corps as a medical officer. In 1987, she was admitted into NASA’s astronaut training program and became the first African American woman to do so. Her role as the science mission specialist on her flight crew included conducting crew-related science experiments on weightlessness and motion sickness on the space shuttle. 

Illustration created by Stylist

Jane Goodall (1934-Present)

Jane Goodall has shaped our understanding of human behavior by studying chimpanzees. Her studies revealed that human beings share many social behaviors that are comparable to those of chimpanzees. Because of her work, Goodall was a trailblazer for women in the field of primatology. Women were not well accepted in the field when she first entered it, however, the number of women primatologists is now about equal to the number of men, in no small part due to Goodall’s work and her encouragement for other women to join the field. In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute in order to continue her conservation efforts. 

Anna Mani (1918 – 2001)

As a physicist and meteorologist, Anna Mani made strides in the areas of meteorological instrumentation and furthered the world’s understanding of the ozone layer and solar radiation. She grew up in a family where women were primarily encouraged to get married rather than pursue their education, however, Mani was highly dedicated to her studies and went on to graduate from college with honors in physics and chemistry. She is considered one of India’s pioneering women scientists and she served as the Deputy Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department. One of her many contributions was the invention of an instrument to measure atmospheric ozone. 

Illustration created by Dilip Kadam

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

Rachel Carson is most famously known for her 1962 book Silent Spring, which is credited with energizing the global environmentalist movement and inspiring the public to be more impassioned about addressing challenges facing the natural world. Carson was a marine biologist who worked in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries before becoming a full-time author. Her first three novels, a trilogy describing life within the world’s oceans, were all bestsellers. For her work as an environmentalist and conservationist, Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Illustration created by Massive Science

Feeling inspired by the work of these groundbreaking scientists? Visit the Legends of Learning platform to help your students get started on their own journey of mastering different STEM fields. You can even find games in the specific fields of some of our featured scientists such as astronomy, weather, and sustainability!

It’s easy to use Legends of Learning’s new embedded video feature to make game assignments even more dynamic with the addition of a YouTube or Vimeo video amongst the games and assessment questions.

But beyond an on-topic video, did you know there’s even more you can do with this feature?

Here are five ways to integrate videos into your Legends of Learning assignment:

1. Mini-Lesson Introduction – Record yourself giving a mini-lesson as an introduction to the topic. Then, have students play an instructional game to extend their learning and apply their knowledge.

2. Remote Demonstrations – Have students complete a Legends of Learning instructional game to build background knowledge on the topic. Then, include a video recording of a teacher-led experiment that applies what they learned in the game. End the assignment with a custom assessment to the students on their findings. 

3. Homework or Asynchronous Lessons – Found a great video that you want students to watch on their own time? Include the video in a Legends of Learning assignment. Then, create a custom assessment to ask students questions about the video they watched.

4. Extending Viewing – Have a long video for students to watch? Break up the YouTube video into separate segments with a Legends of Learning game between segments. Simply save the video as different time stamped sections and include each segment in the assignment. (Reminder: this can only be done with YouTube videos and not with Vimeo.)

5. Game Previews – Include the game preview video, when available, before a game in your assignment. This will give students a sneak peak into the game before playing it themselves and provide additional context to the game instructions for better playing and learning.

Do this in a few easy steps:

• Open the game information and select “Watch Preview”
• In the video viewer, click on “Copy link” in the upper right hand corner
• Go back to the assignment and add video. Paste that copied link when prompted.
• 🎉.  Ta da! The preview video is now part of the assignment.

Core to the mission of Legends of Learning, and why we started this company, is to impact how learning is accomplished, and to do so with a 21st century, digital approach. Research has shown that students learn best through play and, as founders who grew up on Pong, Oregon Trail, the original Mario Brothers and other cult classics, it was no mystery that we turned to video games to get the job done.

On any given day, we’re proud of our team and our product for helping millions of teachers and students engage in learning in a fun, interactive and yet challenging way. Today, though, we’re especially proud.

We’re proud to receive $5 million in seed-round funding from Konvoy Ventures and angel investors who also participated in the round like James Park (Co-founder and CEO of Fitbit), Holly Liu (Co-founder at Kabam and former Visiting Partner at Y Combinator), Jeremy Liew (Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners), and Kun Gao (Co-founder and Founding CEO of Crunchyroll).

We picked Konvoy Ventures as a partner because they shared our vision for a future of rigorous but engaging game-based learning. Josh Chapman, Managing Partner of Konvoy Ventures told us, “The education system has evolved too slowly over the years, especially in regards to a move towards a more digitally-native experience. With this transition, the integration of games into the curriculum allows for a dynamic and more equitable experience that we believe shines a light on what the future of education will look like. This is why we are thrilled to invest and join Legends of Learning for the journey ahead.”

We’re humbled by their support, both monetarily and with their time, and the shared vision of Legends’ impact.

We’re excited to be partnering with Konvoy–who are also dedicated to the future of gaming–and the accelerated growth that’s possible with this partnership.

Last but not least, we’re thankful. Thankful to our users who have been on this journey with us over the years and to our team who continues to give their best to the creation and support of this amazing product.

Here’s a little bit about our journey: where we’ve been, where we’re going and who we are!

Legends of Learning in the early days

Legends of Learning launched in 2017 as a solution to better engage students with academically rigorous coursework. Based on studies conducted by Vanderbilt University researching the efficacy of a game-based learning approach in schools, the study found that students learn better through experience and play. 

…and from there we went from zero to one. That’s a common phrase used in start-up companies. As a new company, you’re literally making something happen from nothing and it all starts with that first step, and getting from zero to one.

We started with only science games for middle school students in 2017 across 90 standardized topics. 2018 saw us reach over 1,000 games with the addition of science games for elementary school students in 56 standardized topics. Over 500 math games for 3rd through 8th grade students were added throughout 2019 and 2020 across 240 standardized topics. Since 2020, hundreds more games have been added and are being developed in both math and science for students from kindergarten through eighth grade.

Where we stand today

Over 5% of all elementary and middle school students in the United States are using Legends of Learning each month as part of their regular classroom instruction. With games that engage and challenge students academically with Common Core, NGSS, TEKS, VA SOL, FL MAFS and other state standards, teachers use Legends for introductory, review, enrichment and differentiated instruction.

Now, we have a library of over 2,000 math and science games, aligned to various national and state curricula.  Where  do all of these amazing games coming from? A global network of game developers who compete for the best games, the most play time and the highest reviews. This unique developer marketplace consists of over 500 studios building innovative games and constantly responding to feedback from students and teachers. For the first time in K-12 education the learning content is dynamic and improves over time. Games rated highly by teachers and students rise to the top and get paid more, while lower-rated games are removed and replaced.

The platform offers even more than games! With reporting at the student level, teachers can personalize learning for their students, while also being able to help those in need with text-to-speech and Spanish translations.

Even assignments, the crux of Legends of Learning, are evolving and getting power ups with the ability to add videos and custom quiz questions.

Beyond a tool used by schools, we also have Awakening, an immersive 3D game that includes the same math and science content, but can be played at home in a more adventurous way that has students exploring a fun town with friends. As students battle their Beasties with others in a safe, multiplayer learning world, they progress through their school-district-aligned curriculum and engage with the marketplace of learning games. Played through a web browser or mobile app, parents are able to monitor their children’s coursework and progress as students engage with math and science like never before. 

What’s on the horizon

We’re a group of busy bees here. Once huddled in a Baltimore-area basement (classic), our now global team of nearly fifty employees is working on some exciting projects.

One example is a new product release that helps students build an understanding of basic math facts and recall them easily with little cognitive load. This will be released before the end of the year as part of our continued effort to making learning fun. The goal of this tool is to develop confidence in students to understand number relationships. This ability to recall basic math facts with regard to fact families is critical to an ongoing, successful experience learning math. For schools who participate in this offering, this will be another educational game that students can play with the support of their parents at home.

What the future holds

Something you’ll often hear us say that we want to help students develop a love for learning. That’s because we believe that learning doesn’t stop when students graduate from high school, or even college, and that learning isn’t limited to the traditional academic topics.

The long-term vision for our company is that, one day, anyone who wants to learn anything through experience and play will be able to come to Legends of Learning to find an immersive world of game-based learning built by millions of game creators around the world. We want to be the Learning corner of the unfolding Metaverse.

This mindset, paired with the support of our partners like Konvoy Ventures, is what drives our team to keep updating and improving the platform, as well as expanding content areas to more diverse topics and diverse groups of people.

In the meantime…

We’ll keep building a platform we believe in–one that students use because they want to, not because they have to. We’ll continue to partner with teachers and school districts to establish and build that love of learning in students. Last but not least, in this partnership with Konvoy Ventures, we remain committed to our goals: to have more students learn successfully through experience and play.

We’re looking forward to a fun future learning with everyone! Thank you for being on this adventure with us!

Again, thank you: on behalf of myself and everyone on the Legends of Learning team!

• Dr. Vadim Polikov, Legends of Learning CEO and Co-Founder

From the invention of the microphone to furthering the world’s understanding of the human body, African American scientists have spearheaded countless breakthroughs in STEM fields–and often even while encountering pushback and hardships on account of their race. In celebration of Black History Month, we’re highlighting some of these incredible scientists who can be inspirations to the next generation of astrophysicists, inventors, and engineers.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958 – Present)

Neil deGrasse Tyson is known for his ability to break down complex scientific concepts in a clear and exciting manner. Known for his television series “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,” Tyson was appointed in 2001 by former President Bush to serve on a coalition aimed at advancing the aerospace industry in the United States.

Donna Auguste (1958 – Present)

Donna Auguste was the first African American woman to earn a PhD from Carnegie-Mellon University. After earning her doctorate in computer science, she was hired to work on some of the first commercially available artificial intelligence products. She went on to found Freshwater Software Inc., a software solutions provider that grew to be a multi-million dollar company. She later founded a non-profit to provide resources around the world to underprivileged communities.

Illustration created by JKX Comics

James West (1931 – Present)

James West is famously known as one of the co-inventors of the foil electret microphone, which provides the technological basis for most modern microphones from music equipment to hearing aids. West has been a longtime advocate for increasing diversity within STEM fields, and he is currently a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Illustration created by hackaday.com

Marie M. Daly (1921 – 2003)

After earning her master’s degree at New York University in only one year, Marie M. Daly enrolled in Columbia University where she became the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry in the United States. Her career was centered around understanding the human body and included research into how diet affects heart health. Highlighting her role as an activist, she also created a scholarship fund to aid students of color pursuing advanced science degrees.

Illustration created by Massive Science

Feeling inspired by the work of these groundbreaking scientists? Visit the Legends of Learning platform to help your students get started on their own journey of mastering different STEM fields. You can even find games in the specific fields of some of our featured scientists such as astronomy, electricity, and chemistry!

2/22/22 has strong ties to both math and science.

Let’s take a look at the science route, first!

“Two’s day” is closely tied to astrology, which is based on finding meaning in the movements and positions of the moon, stars, and planets. This is very similar to astronomy, which is the scientific study of such objects in space. Many people who are interested in astrology look at 2/22/22 as a special day to connect with those around them and approach life with extra kindness and positivity. 

Celebrate this special date with a scientific, astronomical approach and a collaborative 5E lesson plan to help elementary school students learn about the planets in our solar system and their unique characteristics and positions around the sun! View the lesson plan here.

Or, if you’d rather create your own assignment, here are some great solar-system games to get you started! 

Looking to celebrate with math instead?

2/22/22 is also a palindrome, meaning it reads the same forwards as it does backward. Check out this lesson plan about arithmetic patterns to teach elementary school students about the interesting ways numbers can be sequenced.

Don’t miss out on our latest posts!

• How to Get Free Learning Games in 5 Steps
• 5 Earth Day Science Learning Games For Your Class
• Game-Based Learning is Taken to New Heights with Awakening v1.0!
• 7 New Science Games for the Classroom in March 2025
• 7 Math Games for the Classroom in March 2025

Utilize student groups for differentiated learning between your classes as well as individualize instruction for students by: 

• class period
• for remediation, intervention, or enrichment groups
• after school groups
• ESL students

The first step is to create groups in your Legends of Learning account. You can import your groups from Google Classroom (or another rostering integration) as well as create your own smaller groups as needed. Here is more information on how to create groups in your Legends of Learning account.

After creating groups, you’ll want to tag students to the appropriate group(s). You can add students to groups individually, or select multiple students to add to a group at once. Need help adding students to groups? Check out this article with more information.

Once your groups are set up with students, it’s time to assign your first assignment! After creating an assignment, you’ll have the option to select the group(s) that you want to see this assignment. You can select multiple groups to see the same assignment, or assign differentiated work to individual groups.

Wondering what to do if a student cannot access an assignment that you’ve assigned to a specific group? Your first step is to check that the username the student is signing in with is tagged to the group assigned. If not, you’ll need to add that student to the group in order for them to access the assignment. For more information, check out this article.

You’ve probably already experienced the awesome new search experience on Legends of Learning. In fact, we feel like it has improved at least 3x from what it was last year! Picking up from some things learned over the past couple of years during these crazy Covid times, let’s have some fun reflecting on what we’ve learned in life to to the search function:

LOOSEN UP:

Being right isn’t always the best thing. Doing things one way makes you inflexible.

Searches previously needed to be exact. Any slight variation (even a space at the end of a search phrase) would throw the whole system off.

The search algorithm has been now loosened up to return more games! You should find games returned that match to similar phrases or contextually within the game.

GET HELP:

We’re human, we make mistakes and we’re always learning.

Typos were probably the bane of your existence before, but we get that they happen. Don’t worry: we’ve helped the system to understand what your intended, correct search term is. So, hopefully you’re staring to see games come through for when you didn’t follow the “i before the e” rule.

Nervous that we’ve opened the system up too much? With search results have broadened, will you be wondering why the system offered up the games it did? Don’t worry: game results will now have an info icon highlighting words that matched the search.

LESS IS MORE:

We know this feels contradictory to everything we’ve said prior in this post but when it comes to the right game to choose for your class, we’re sure you’re of the same mindset of: quality over quantity any day.

Search results now have a better way to refine results to your specific needs!

Whether by grade, game type, Lexile reading level or other game features like Spanish translation, everything you need is at your fingertips now!

…WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

In keeping to theme, let’s just say that we like reassurance that things are on the up and up.

With the Hero Sweepstakes being such a huge hit, we’ve updated tracking for your points. This means you can now see a clearer record for how you’re earning and using points, as well as filter your view to look for a specific aspect of your points.

Hopefully you’re finding all of this to be an even better Legends experience. We’d love to hear you thoughts, be sure to write us a line with what’s working and what’s not to: support@legendsoflearning.com.

PS: you can still enter the sweeps through February 11th at Noon, ET!

Emily Weichert 

TX: Caldwell Intermediate School, 5th grade science

• “What’s so important to me is that the students are choosing Legends of Learning and not forcing it on them. They’ll play it because it’s fun and they don’t realize they’re learning because of the video game aspect of it. It’s impactful for students because sometimes with state testing and standardized testing, we’ve lost the fun in education. We spend so much time drilling and killing questions: the students know it’s a game and they’re doing higher level thinking without the strain.”
• “I love it because I can individualize it, whether at a class or individual student level whether it’s a lower level, at grade level or just moving them forward to another topic. I put my own child on it because it’s worth it. I wouldn’t put my students on anything I wouldn’t put my child on. My students can work independently with it.”
• Using it both for expansion and review, Emily uses Legends in small groups and 1:1 sessions to do something impactful, while also letting students have fun and be engaged while learning. She finds Legends of Learning to be very student oriented. 

Becky Thompson 

OH: Centerburg Elementary School, 4th grade math and science

• Becky finds the mini games fun and challenging for her students. With the data provided by the platform, she has a good understanding of her students’ subject mastery and will restart an assignment if she sees someone hasn’t grasped concepts well.
• Legends of Learning assignments are shared with other teachers and is built into the plan for station rotations.
• “After a year of being at home and being constantly ‘entertained’ or with more attention, Legends helps students be more independent.”

Tarissa Mazetti 

PA: Altoona Area School District Substitute, 4th grade math and science

• When Tarissa first used Legends of Learning for Earth Science, she expected one simple game and later was surprised and loved that there are so many games offered in a variety of topics. As a substitute, she’s since assigned games to her students covering transfer of motion energy, the solar system, finding volume using fractional side lengths, irrational numbers and scientific notation most recently!
• She finds Legends to be very user-friendly and likes that the games don’t need a lot of thorough explanation for her students. 
• Legends is assigned during WIN time: she can assign different games to different groups (either challenging or on grade level) for customized learning.

Brandy Copeland

AL: Alexandria Middle School, 5th grade science

• At the end of a unit, early finishers are allowed to use Legends, and is often used during the enrichment time for advanced students.
• In addition, Brandy checks the reporting for a student’s progress so that she can create another assignment for those students requiring remediation. 
• “It can be so hard to find good science knowledge banks but Legends does provide both breadth and depth of content. It sometimes goes deeper than I was expecting!”

Brooks Amick

SC: Spartanburg Prep (a K-9 charter school), 3rd grade Math, STEM/STEAM

• Brooks adds Legends into his standard lesson plan as an enforcement tool after the set instruction and is also often included in his guided math and science groups stations.
• Brooks finds that Legends of Learning is challenging and that grouping students is helpful for differentiated learning.
• As a paid user, Brooks also uses the available lesson plans to teach subjects.

Legends of Learning games is (and always will be) free for teachers to use! Legends of Learning game-based learning approach offers standards-aligned content through more than 2,000 games with over 100,000 questions. Actionable reporting helps teachers assess students’ understanding with student grouping allowing for differentiated learning. Over 10 million students and teachers across the country use Legends of Learning’s research-backed approach. Sign up for a free account to try this engaging and impactful approach in your own classroom today.